I saw this earlier in the spring, and I am a little behind in posting it. I heard this juvenile Steller’s jay begging as I walked up the creek trail and found it perched on a fallen tree. I watched it for a bit as it sat quietly observing its new world outside the nest. Nearby I saw the parent swoop in with a bill full of unidentifiable food. It was a sizable chunk of what appeared to be animal guts of some kind. It rearranged them and tried mashing them up a little, presumably to form an appropriate sized bite. It flew over to a now begging juvenile that was calling and fluttering its wings with its mouth fully agape. The parent stuck its bill down into the juvenile’s mouth and deposited the food. Afterwards the juvenile just sat there with the food in its mouth, not swallowing. The parent stood there and curiously turned its head and watched. The juvenile continued to just sit there with a mouthful of food. I am not sure if the juvenile was feeling that the bite was too big to swallow or just savoring this new cuisine. Either way, it was swallowing it. The parent could see that this food wasn’t working, so it stuck its bill back into the juvenile’s mouth and took the food back out. The juvenile didn’t protest and sat there seemingly a little relieved. The parent stood there for a moment with the food in its mouth contemplating whether or not to try again. The juvenile sat there looking slightly dazed, definitely not enthusiastically begging like before. The parent then flew off to a nearby tree branch and decided to consume the food itself. Afterwards it flew off in search of more food. It returned to find that the baby bird had recovered from the previous attempt and was happily begging for more food. It was amusing to see that even juvenile birds, like young people, can be picky eaters sometimes especially when a parent brings home something new to try.
